Date:         Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:55:13 -0800
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <garciasghostvw@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <garciasghostvw@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Bostig suspending AT kits
In-Reply-To:  <5c80974c1003111212s54216aa6g21d846b4f6b5b69d@mail.gmail.com>
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There are a lot of little things that can go wrong with these torque converters. I had two sets of three matching bolts that appeared to the eye to be the same but one set was maybe 1.5 millimeters longer than the other. I wound up using the longer set which bottomed out in the TC, making it feel like the bolts were tight, but the TC wasn't tight to the flex plate. I didn't run it very long like that, but in that short time it cracked the bottom of the neck, which immediately began to leak, and as it went along the crack widened and leaked even more. I thought it was a bad seal. When I took the transaxle to a local tranny shop, the guy went over the TC with me and explained the damage. He also told me that small amounts of crap or a deformity on the neck of the TC could damage the seal, and that he had seen cases where somebody had replaced the seal several times, as has happened with Jim's customer, and it was due to the shop not cleaning the mating surface or ensuring it still had the proper shape, and also cases where people had repeatedly replaced the seal when the actual leak was nearby in the TC itself, as was the case with mine. 

There was a thread on the Samba where a guy had pictures of a rebuilt TC he bought that he couldn't get to fit, and on comparing it to his old TC he found that whoever rebuilt his second one had assembled/welded it improperly and it was slightly thicker than it should have been (by only a couple of millimeters, iirc).

I suppose Jim made the right decisions overall for his business given his stated reasons, but it couldn't have been easy knowing that he had no actual responsibility there. You learn as you go with these things, and in my own business I've had to implement pre-emptive disclaimers based on past disasters that were no fault of mine. : /

He says: "It is unrealistic to demand the entire trans be returned to us for inspection"; I think I'd be finding a way to make it realistic, if I'd already been sunk so far into somebody else's problem. 

Hopefully they'll get all worked out.

Cya,
Robert